Election tribunal affirms Fayose’s victory

The Ekiti State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal, sitting in Abuja, on Friday affirmed the victory of Governor Ayodele Fayose at the June 21 poll.


The tribunal had relocated to Abuja after thugs disrupted the proceedings in Ado Ekiti in September.

The Suraju-Mohammed-led three-man panel, in its judgment, dismissed the petition filed by the All Progressives Congress challenging the declaration of Fayose and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party as the winner in the election.

The reading of the judgment lasted about four hours on Friday.

The Independent National Electoral Commission had declared Fayose the winner of the election defeating the APC and its candidate, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.
The tribunal held on Friday that APC’s peti‎tion lacked merit as the party failed to prove any of its claims.

The party had through its petition asked the tribunal to void the election which it alleged was marred by irregularities.
The party had also contended that Fayose was not qualified to have stood for the election on the grounds that he was impeached from the same office in 2006 and that his Higher National Diploma Certificate was forged.

The APC had therefore asked the tribunal to nullify the election on the grounds of the alleged irregularities characterising the poll or in the alternative return its candidate in the election, Fayemi, who polled the second highest votes, as the winner.

The respondents to the petition were the PDP, Fayose, INEC, the Chief of Army Staff and the Inspector General of Police.
In its judgment, the three-man panel led by Justice Suraj Mohammed held ‎that the petitioner failed to prove the alleged irregularities characterising the poll.

It noted that the petitioner contradicted ‎itself when it sought an order nullifying the election and in another breath sought that the certificate of return be given to its candidate.

The tribunal further held that though the issue of previous impeachment of Fayose was both a pre-election and election matter, ‎the said impeachment could not be used against him (Fayose) because the impeachment panel was wrongly constituted.

On the allegations of malpractices and electoral irregularities, the tribunal held that the petitioner’s claim was imprecise as it failed to show, in specific terms, how and where such malpractices were perpetrated.

The tribunal struck out the names of the Nigerian Police and Army from the respondents list, and at the same time, struck out the allegations of wrongdoing leveled against them in the petitioner’s affidavit.